Shoppers as well as merchants are in an upbeat mood.
”Thailand and India are selling lots of little diamonds christmas gift,” says Christopher Hourmouzios, diamond editor of the The Basel Magazine for the jewelry trade.
”That’s the low end. But people who can afford it are going for really big rocks.”
The United States leads the buying fever, and there has been a surge of Internet shopping as well as street trade.
Women, although traditionally more vulnerable to images of human misery than men, are now bullish on diamond jewelry christmas gift on sale, buying their own instead of waiting for romantic gifts.
Those who buy one diamond want more, say market surveys.
Does anybody link the gorgeous gems with limbless children and gun-running thugs in Africa?
”It could happen, and of course it’s a worry,” admits a De Beers executive. ”We have to make people confident that they are buying clean diamonds Links Rings .”
Diamond sellers shudder at photos of fur-clad women being sprayed with paint by animal-rights activists and wonder gloomily if their time will come.
So far, it hasn’t. In spite of high-profile human-rights campaigns links of london friendship Bracelet, the lustre hasn’t rubbed off the reigning love god of jewels.